Miliband gets one million pounds to invent policy, but doesn’t make any. Does it matter? Do politicians need policy to get elected? In my view they don’t need specifically detailed policy, but they do need broad principled solutions. Policy is a way of showing voters a “way of thinking” about solutions, and demonstrating that the Party is clever enough to be entrusted with running the nation. If you can’t write any ideas down, you will not win votes because people can’t get a practical sense of where your values lie. You also demonstrate you are either not very smart, or are too smart to be practical. Both don’t win votes.